


On the Achievement of Immortality, by Jonathan of Conte, aged 59, and Gareth of Naxen, aged 60

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: a certain ability to recognise objects under our noses [9]
Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Extended Families, Gen, Jon is a complete troll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-07 00:10:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3153458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon and Gary reminisce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Achievement of Immortality, by Jonathan of Conte, aged 59, and Gareth of Naxen, aged 60

            “Please tell me,” Finally-Duke-Gareth said, staring down at the handsomely pensive figure of his Shortly-To-Be-Former-King, “you aren’t having second thoughts.”

 

            “Mm,” Jon said, in a thoughtful tone which only worried Gary more. “No.”

 

            Gary sat down next to him. “Because it’s very difficult to undo all the hard work on a coronation and an abdication ceremony. Did you know there have only been two abdication ceremonies in the history of Tortall, and one was conducted at swordpoint? Master Oakbridge nearly had a second apoplexy.”

 

            “Of joy, I hope?” Jon enquired absently, staring out into the garden, eyes resting on the new spring leaves on the trees and the freshly-planted, immaculate flowerbeds.

 

            “Of course,” Gary said. “The thought of all that untrodden etiquette ground made him as happy as the proverbial pig.”

 

            Jon smiled, again rather pensively. It was a softer, less direct version of the stunning grin that had charmed more women than Gary really cared to count, with the possible exception of Thayet, who had always seen Jon for what he was – warts and all.

 

            Not that Jon had ever had warts. Thinking back, Gary couldn’t recall so much as a pimple. And now, Jon was a very distinguished grey, with only those lines that showed the dignity and the strain of pushing forty years on the throne, and all the intensity in his gaze at fifty-nine that he’d had at twenty-two. Years of exhausting warfare and diplomacy, the drain of using the Dominion Jewel and the faint lingering effects of the Sweating Sickness meant that he looked a year or two older than his true age, and that his health wasn’t what it might have been; but he was still hale and hearty. He was still Jonathan the Magnificent, even as he prepared to hand over his crown to his son.

 

            As Gary’s mind was wont to do, it wandered off into the details of security arrangements and the bureaucratic ramifications of the transition. Cythera frequently told him he was in danger of losing it entirely.

 

            “At least I made one of my subjects happy,” Jon said philosophically.

 

            Gary tore his mind from the consideration of potential candidates for his successor and sat bolt upright. “Sire, allow an old friend to tell you that that is a piece of rubbishy self-pity you ought to be ashamed of.”

 

            Jon laughed, a flash of light in the increasing darkness of the evening. “Charmed. But no, Gary, I was making a serious point. I am pleased with what I have achieved. Some things expediency forced on me; others, politics. Sometimes I was wrong; sometimes I was right, but could not implement the right solutions.” He fell silent for a moment. “On the whole, I think I have done well. I think Tortall is a richer, fairer, safer and more lawful country than it was when I ascended the throne, and I think Roald is the best possible pair of hands to pass it to.”

 

            “I agree.” Gary took a deep breath. “May I be honest?”

 

            “Can’t stop you,” Jon said agreeably, and Gary was immediately drawn back to their page days, or the latest years of King Roald the Peacemaker’s reign, before Alanna turned Jon down, before Roger came back. Times when their rapport had been easy and joking, with hardly a hint of work to it. When there had been no strain to it. Really, this was a very positive step for Gary; he looked forward to once more being able to sit with Jon and talk without grain prices or Scanrans entering into the conversation.

 

            “I have not always thought every decision you have taken was just,” Gary said slowly. “Had I been in your shoes, there are things I would have done differently. But on the whole, there have been very few of them. And I think your decisions were those which, at the time, seemed best to you in the light of your experience, your judgement, and your not inconsiderable brainpower. Moreover, Thayet has been an extremely positive influence. Where you have been too conservative, Thayet has pushed the boundaries. Where she has been too radical, you have moderated her. You have made an excellent ruling couple, you are generally loved in the eyes of your people, your nobles are temporarily quiescent, and your mistakes have been fewer than they might have been. History will not remember them.”

 

            Gary kept to himself that he thought that that was not necessarily a good thing. He didn’t remember King Jasson, but his venerable father had done, and Gary had picked up a lot about the respected monarch that had not been in the history he had learned as a page - Gary was deeply thankful that Prince Jasson had never really taken after his namesake, or they would never have had a moment’s peace. He wished that Jon would be remembered for the things that made him human, as well as the things that had made him a monarch: but he was a practical man, and he conceded that it was unlikely.

 

            “So,” Jon said eventually, “to summarise: I haven’t done a bad job and I have excellent taste in wives.”

 

            Gary allowed himself a smile. “Wife, Jon. Singular. Unless there’s something you’d like to tell me.”

 

            Jon laughed. “No. From the moment I saw Thayet... Even more so, the first time I really talked to her... well. You are right, Gary. I am very, very fortunate in my wife.”

 

            Gary realised it was getting cold. Jon appeared impervious to the temperature, but he certainly wasn’t, and the stone benches in Queen Lianne’s gardens were a bit chilly on the posterior. “Who will kill us both if we sit out here and I let you catch a sickness of the lungs.”  


            “Relax,” Jon said confidently, reminding Gary more and more of the arrogant, generous page he had been. “It won’t happen. I submit, Gary, that I am also very, very fortunate in my children.”

 

            Stunned, Gary found himself swallowing past a lump in his throat, and remembering Kally’s misery, Roald’s stoicism, Liam’s bitterness, the fights with Lianne and Vania, and the slab of marble in the catacombs beneath which Jasson’s mortal remains would never lie. Jon had tried sp hard to be a good king and a good father, and so often the two had not been compatible – and then, when he had least expected it, both had backfired on him. Being a good king had left Jon’s half-Yamani granddaughter in an assassin’s line of fire, because Jon’s international treaties meant she wasn’t thought Tortallan enough to be queen. Being a good father had left Jasson disappeared to some distant Realm beyond the mortal plane, because Jon had taught him to value others’ lives as highly as his own, and Jasson had surrendered himself to a besieging mage because he could not face the prospect of condemning the soldiers and civilians under his protection to death.

 

            And yet Jon so rarely spoke of his children. He loved them; he still wrote to Kalasin, to Liam, even though Liam returned his letters unopened. He discussed tactics with Vania, who was just barely growing to trust him again, and healing and the desert with Lianne. He had given Roald all the lessons in kingship his father had failed to impart to him. He had always been proud of them, but never – at least in Gary’s hearing – had he admitted out loud that he loved them. He had never said anything of the kind.

 

            “Thayet and I,” Jon said, “raised six remarkable children. We can be proud of all of them.” There was a slight hitch in his voice, but only a very slight one, and Gary guessed he was thinking of Jasson; warm, strong, uncomplicated Jasson, gone between one heartbeat and the next, leaving behind a grieving Trebond girl and a stunned family. “If there’s one thing I regret, Gary, it’s this: that so much of what makes my children so impressive is the independence and strength they learnt when I wasn’t looking.”

 

            Gary thought, with a pang of guilt, of his own children. Of how, when they were small and he came home from meetings of the Lords’ Assembly, or from tours of the country, or travelling with Jon’s advisors to war, they sometimes hadn’t known him. Of the accusations that Cythera had so often choked back and hidden. “We – you had no choice. If you hadn’t worked so hard, there would have been no Tortall for them to own to.”     

 

            “This is true. This is very true.” Jon took a deep breath of his own. “I wonder, if I asked Vania, would she think it was worth it?”

 

            “No,” Gary said promptly. “Stupid question. Try Lianne instead.”

 

            There was a small pause. “Another excellent point. I see why I kept you on as Prime Minister.”

 

            Gary sniffed and folded his arms, showing all the maturity of his rank and years by not smacking his sovereign around the head. Jon, who could clearly read his mind, chuckled.

 

            There was a long, comfortable silence. Crickets chirped. An elephant from the royal menagerie trumpeted, yet another reminder that things had changed since the days and evenings they had spent out here as squires and young knights, amusing his aunt Lianne while she tried and failed to convalesce.

 

            “Yes,” Jon said thoughtfully, drawing the word out. “The successful conclusion of two wars. A recovery from famine and economic destruction. Increased rights for servants. Decreased privileges for nobles. Good relations with most of the Eastern Lands. Free schooling. Better regulation of indentures, suppression of corruption, clarification and enforcement of lords’ responsibilities towards their tenants. Successful partnerships with friendly Immortals; control of those that are not. A more effective and professional army. Lady knights. More free or low-cost medical provision.” A brief pause. “And, of course, six remarkable children, two son-in-laws I like and respect, two daughters-in-law who can keep their husbands in check, several healthy and charming grandchildren, and a wife without whom, Gary, I would be _sunk_.”

 

            Gary cleared his throat. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

 

            “Yes.” Jon sounded thoughtful, but also more pleased with himself than before. “Ah. I seem to have forgotten something.”

           

            Gary did a quick mental run-through of Jon’s achievements. “Really?”

 

            “Yes.” Jon’s hand found his in the dark, and squeezed it hard. His iron grip had not suffered over decades of kingship; Gary’s aching fingers could testify to that. “I would be sunk without Thayet; but without good friends, Gary, I would never have set sail at all.”

 

            Gary found himself wrestling with emotion for the second time in half an hour, and cursed Jon’s rhetorical skills. “I...”

 

            “Of course,” Jon continued pensively, “when I say that, I refer to Alanna and Raoul, without whom –”

 

            Gary detected a note of mischief and theatrical melodrama and gave in to his baser impulses. Jon, who was after all still the king for at least the next week, recoiled with a yelp and a laugh.

 

            “You dare strike your king?”

 

            “When the king is being an arse,” Gary said testily, “the king can live with a slap or two.”

 

            Jon chuckled. “Oh, I daresay I can.”

 

            It was now almost completely dark. They heard footsteps, and a small voice behind them, and both turned to see Lianokami in formal breeches and a brocade tunic belted with a silk obi, holding up a blue witchlight.

 

            “Grandfather?” she said. “Grandmother says come in, or she will – er, you will miss the evening meal.”

 

            Gary recognised in her Shinko’s tact, Roald’s turn for diplomacy, the tones of Thayet’s voice, and Jon’s Gift. This not unnaturally made him rather dizzy.

 

            He blinked, and it was just Liano, his best friend’s granddaughter. That didn’t improve matters.

 

            “Of course, sweetheart,” Jon said, voice rather doting. “I’ll come at once.”

 

            Liano nodded, and bobbed Gary a quick, delicate bow. “Good evening, Great-Uncle Gary.”

 

            Gary succumbed, as he always did, to the charm of generations of Contés and the lure of nostalgia. “None of that, young lady. Come and give me a hug.”

 

            Jon smiled, and so did Liano, and for one moment they were mirror images of each other.

 

            And for that single, shining moment, Gary envied Jon.

 


End file.
